Nothing Softer and Weaker
by Allekha
Summary: Snippets from a life Katara might have led, if a fever had burned her eyesight out in childhood. (Kataang)


A/N: Written for attackfish for Trick-or-Treat 2014 and finally crossposted. Title comes from Laozi:

There is nothing softer and weaker than water,  
And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.  
For this reason there is no substitute for it.

* * *

By the time he is ten, Sokka has long since learned not to grab Katara's hand. If she wants his help, he offers an arm and lets her take it herself.

Not that she needs it _that_ often. Their village is small, and it has only become smaller. She can move from their tent to any other house by herself, and she has yet to walk into the central bonfire. Even when they go out across the ice, fishing or hunting, she doesn't do _that_ badly. Bending water and snow and ice all feel different, though he says it all looks the same to him.

~!~

One day they go out fishing and get into an argument and then Katara's waterbending gets a _little_ out of control. Suddenly the ice floe shifts violently beneath her, the water cresting, and she has to hold on for dear life.

"Katara!" Sokka cries afterward, in a tone that makes her stop and listen.

"What?"

"Behind you- there's this weird round iceberg thing that wasn't there before!"

She turns and waves her hand, feels thick ice resisting the touch of her bending. "Wow, how big is it?"

"It's _huge_. Um, if the whole village got together I don't think we could put our arms around it."

"I did that?"

She skips across the ice floes and puts her glove to it. There are strange ripples in the ice. Behind her, Sokka's boots crunch. "Wait a moment – there's someone in there."

"What? Then we have to get him out!"

"Hold on, let me try my club-"

She steps back and lets Sokka swing at the ice-ball. Thunk, thunk, thunk, crack. There's a hissing sound, and air rushes past her face. In what's left of her vision, she can see a bright light.

"Stand back!" Sokka shouts after the light fades.

"What?"

"There's this kid standing- hey! He just fainted."

"Is he okay?" She can hear a sliding sound on the ice. She moves forward, fumbling around and ignoring Sokka's warnings. Katara finds the boy's shoulders. He's turned over, so she rights him up and shakes him gently. "Come on, wake up," she encourages.

And he does. The joke about penguin sledding (it is a joke, right?) isn't funny, but he sounds so cute. So young. What is he doing here?

~!~

It's a little scary, being away from home for the first time. But it's so exciting, too! Even on Kyoshi Island, which isn't so far, the air smells different, and the fish is cooked differently. She doesn't like how the sand shifts beneath her feet, and she could have done without Aang almost drowning, but overall it's a nice change from home and not so big that she could get lost.

And Aang doesn't try to snatch spoons out of her hand or try to do her sewing for her like some of the village women still do. When they visit the air temple, she hears the wonder in his voice and gives up on trying to convince him that the airbenders won't be there. Instead she asks him to describe the temple. "Um, well, there's a lot of paths that wind up and down the mountain. And there's a bunch of really pretty buildings that are white with blue roofs – sorry, are colors okay?"

"Sure. Besides, I wasn't always blind, you know." She shimmies a little closer to him. "I just got really, really sick when I was little. I had such a high fever I couldn't tell what was real or not. When I got better, I could hardly see anything. But I remember what a lot of things look like." She smiles at him. "So, white buildings, blue roofs?"

His voice perks up again as he restarts his description. It really does sound beautiful.

~!~

The more she practices with Aang, the more she starts to notice the water. It's always felt different to her in different states, but she thinks she's starting to _feel_ it even when she's not trying to bend. It's like a sound on the edge of her hearing, or a light touch on her skin. She tests it out, tries seeing when they will fly through a cloud before they do or figuring out where the water is when they land before Sokka can point her at it.

So when the reach the Northern Water Tribe, at first she's ecstatic. She can sense where the roads are. She can tell where the edge of the canal is. For once, she doesn't need to hold onto Sokka's arm or put a hand on Aang's shoulder to keep from getting turned around in a city. When Master Pakku and his students perform their waterbending dance at dinner, she can trace the movement of their waterbending through space. She wants to learn how to bend like that.

Her dreams are finally coming true. She doesn't even complain about how much time Sokka spends describing how beautiful Princess Yue looks with her perfect smooth skin and her glowing white hair and... Instead, she drifts off into a daydream of what the waterbending lessons will be like.

Of course, her joy only lasts a little while, until Master Pakku brushes her off for being a girl. Of all the stupid things!

But Aang's training is more important. She thinks of the way he cried after the southern air temple, of the acrid smell of smoke when Kyoshi Island burned, the way he progresses in leaps and bounds enough to make her shake with jealousy. She lets her anger flow away and goes to find the healing hut instead.

Yugoda invites her to sit up on the platform with her. "That way you can feel along if you need to," she says.

"I'm fine, thanks." She can hear the other girls whispering in high-pitched voices – they sound younger than she is. It's bad enough that she's standing out already. Besides, she can feel Yugoda's waterbending like icewater on her fingertips. It's clear and sharp. Maybe this will be useful, after all.

She'd still rather be with Aang.

~!~

In retrospect, challenging Master Pakku to a duel _probably_ wasn't one of her smartest decisions, but it worked. And she has to hand it to him: Pakku may be a sexist jerk, but once he has accepted her as his student, he treats her like any other. She gets no passes on anything for being a girl, or for being blind. He describes the movements aloud so she can copy them, and that's it.

She learns far, far faster than she ever could have on her own. Her sense of the water strengthens; now it's always buzzing along her skin. "It's going to snow," she says one day. Sokka laughs, but a few minutes later, lacy flakes start floating down.

~!~

Water mastered, they move on to trying to find an earthbending master for Aang. When they go to the Earth Rumble tournament and the Blind Bandit comes on, Sokka leans over and says, "She looks like she really is blind."

She hears the crack of stone, feels the ground shake. "She's blind and she's doing _that_?" She hopes that they can convince this girl to come along. It would be great to have another girl in the group, and a blind one too.

~!~

Toph, however, is not exactly what Katara had hoped for. She's too tough, too independent, and she seems to get along with the boys better than with Katara. And she might be blind, too, but she doesn't seem interested in- talking about it, or something. Complaining. Sharing stories. _Something_.

Then again, Sokka keeps forgetting in a way he never would with Katara. When she goes food shopping with her brother one day, she can't help but vent a little. "I think it's her vibration sensing thing," Sokka says when she falls quiet for a moment. "I mean, you can – two steps here – you can do your freaky magic thing with the water, but you don't know where everyone around you is all the time."

"I guess you're right. I just wish she would be a little nicer, at least. I'm really worried that she's going to push Aang too hard."

Sokka shrugs. She sighs. Before she can complain more, they stop at a fruit stall. He lets her pick, because she always manages to find the best ones.

~!~

The worst time in Katara's life – even worse than the day she lost her mother – is when she is stuck in the middle of a desert with a brother high on cactus juice, an earthbender who is too tired to do or even suggest much of anything, and an Avatar who is stewing in anger. On top of that, the air is so dry she doesn't even have the nice shivery sensation of humidity to keep her company.

"Look," she says. "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right? So we can use that to at least keep heading in the right direction."

No-one else wants to lead. When she wakes, just before sunset, she looks around to find the brightest spot in the sky. Then she makes a half-turn and starts off. Who knows if they're heading in the right direction? Aang says nothing if they shift off-course, and Sokka's too loopy to notice. But it's better than wandering off randomly, at least, or that's what she tells herself.

~!~

When she manages to drag Toph out to the spa for a day, she's half-expecting that she'll be fought every step of the way. Instead, she actually ends up having fun. The make-up feels strange on her face, but the attendants had assured her that it suits her well. She likes the thought of looking pretty.

Once they wash the Ba Sing Se girls down the stream, she says, "Those girls don't know what they're talking about."

"How do you know?" Toph asks. "You can't see us, either. Maybe we do look like clowns."

"I'm sure we don't."

"Besides, what's the point of worrying about appearances, anyway? It's just a waste of time. I don't need to impress anyone. I already know who I am."

Katara smiles and touches Toph on the shoulder. "You're really confident and strong. I have to admire you for that."

"Thanks."

When Aang comes home, Katara turns to greets him. He pauses at the doorway, his footsteps shuffling. "You... you look really pretty today, Katara."

She feels her cheeks warm. "Aw, thanks."

~!~

When she hears the crack of lightning, feels the sensory-tickle of the water in Aang tip and fall, her heart cracks into pieces. He can't be dead, he can't be-

The water obeys her will without her even thinking about it. She grabs Aang and sweeps them out of the cavern. All of a sudden she is so glad she had those healing lessons, maybe she can still do something-

~!~

Being out on the sea would be calming if it weren't for everything going wrong. Her dad being _right there_ as if he never abandoned them, Aang being unconscious – she pours the energy she can into helping him heal, but she's worried that it won't be enough. That he won't wake up, or that he will and there will be something wrong with him.

But Aang does wake, eventually, and she's so relieved she could almost cry.

~!~

When Hama starts teaching her, Katara feels for the first time as if she's met someone who really _gets_ her. Someone else who feels the humidity shivering down her skin, who can feel the flow of water in the trees and flowers. If she concentrates hard enough, she can even feel the blood flowing through her body, through the bodies of her friends.

But there's something a little off about Hama. Katara likes the flowers as they are, soft to the touch, not withered and crumbling. Still, she's right, they're only flowers-

-but people are another story.

And then Hama won't even accept her refusal to _bloodbend_ , to turn _living people_ to her will like some kind of monster. Katara doesn't want to do it, she can't lower herself that far.

But while she can dodge attacks from Sokka and Aang, when Hama sends them flying at each other – Katara doesn't know what's happening, but they're screaming, they're going to get hurt aren't they she has to stop this-

She raises her hands. Concentrates on the thrumming underneath her skin, in the air, in Hama. She grasps holds of the little bits of water there, like in the flowers and the trees and the damp earth. Then she lowers her hands.

For a moment she feels a rush of power and control, but it's soon swallowed by a tsunami of disgust. As soon as someone is there to take her away she lets go. Hama's mocking voice floats away, and Katara bends down to cry. She wants to throw up. What she did was terrifying, horrible. She won't ever, ever do it again. No-one – not even Hama – deserves that.

~!~

She wants to kill the man who murdered her mother. She really means it; she's fully prepared to do it. None of this 'forgiveness' that Aang keeps going on about.

She holds up the rain, lets it bead against itself like morning dew on the grass. She sharpens it into blades of ice like frost needles, sends them down.

But this man shivers against the dirt in front of her, and his voice isn't one of a killer. It's the voice of a coward. It's the voice of a man who has absolutely nothing. It's not the voice in her dreams that wears a demon's mask and smells like blood.

Maybe she lets the needles slip away into water because of cowardice. Maybe it's because of strength. She thinks that living like that is, perhaps, the greater punishment in the end, anyway.

~!~

After everything, they have tea.

Sokka is describing the drawing he's making of them: "You're holding a big water whip above you, and Toph looks really tough. Zuko's got this grim, determined look on his face. So does Mai, and she's right beside him. I'm wielding my space sword, and Suki's holding up her fan, and Aang's there with Appa. Oh, and here's Iroh looking all peaceful on the side."

Then Suki starts picking it apart. Katara draws the lines in her mind, imagines herself with Momo's ears. She laughs at the thought.

At some point she asks where Aang has gone. "Out to see the sunset, I think," Zuko replies.

"It's really gorgeous today," Sokka adds. "Lots of red and purple."

She goes outside. Aang isn't very far; she feels her way over to him, conscious of the special shiver his water puts beneath her skin. She's pretty sure it isn't an Avatar thing.

Katara touches his hand, then his shoulder. She leans in a little, feels him doing the same in a line of warmth against her. She lets him finish closing the distance; she wouldn't want to miss him.


End file.
